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Ryan's Birth

I waited a long time and put alot of thought into getting pregnant. Having my first baby at 31 seemed to be the right time for me. My pregnancy was a breeze, I didn't have any morning sickness and didn't develop stretch marks or hemorroids, none of the bad stuff I'd read about in all the books. So, when I went into labor at 3:30 am on Feb. 5, 1997, I just knew I was in for it. Well, I waited for my husband to get home from work at 7:30 am and headed to the hospital at 9:30 am. When I got there I was already dilated to 5cm. I was having tolerable pains but they were getting pretty painful. I got an epidural at about 11:30 am and magically the pains went away. Unfortunately, so did my progress and I had to have a pitocin drip at about 2:00 pm.

That got things going again and my water broke at 8 cm. Along with that came the most intense pain I've ever felt in my life, back labor, the baby was face up instead of down. Well, nothing eased the back labor except my husband pressing on my back really hard. Soon I was dilated to 10 cm and I started pushing. I pushed for about an hour or so and Ryan was born at 6:19 pm. He weighed 7 lbs. 9.8 oz. and was 20 inches long. The most incredible thing was all of his hair, tons of it, and jet black. I had the most wonderful nurse in the world and a terrific husband to help me through, it was a wonderful experience!